Agile and the Seven Sins of Project Management

transcript

Agile and the Seven DeadlySins of Project Management

April 19, 2011

Mike Cohn

Mike Cohn - background

•Founding member and director of Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance•Founder of Mountain Goat Software•Ran my first Scrum project in 1995•Former VPE in four companies

Agile coachand trainer

A cornucopia of agile processes

Extreme Programming (XP)ScrumCrystalDSDMLean software developmentUnbranded “agile”

Agile Processes

Feature-Driven Development (FDD)

OpenUP

Semi-Agile Processes

A closer look at Scrum

But many Scrum teams are adopting much of XP

2- to 4-week iterations called “sprints”

Self-organizing, cross-functional teams

Uses generative rules to create an agile environment

The Scrum project community

Programmer Programmer

Programmer

Tester

User ExperienceDesigner

Analyst

to build andin what order

The team

ScrumMaster

Product Owner

Process coachand Sheepdogfor the team

Cancel

Gift wrap

Return

Sprint2-4 weeks

Return

Sprint goal

Sprint backlog

Potentially shippableproduct increment

Productbacklog

CouponsGift wrap

Coupons

Cancel

24 hours

Seven Sins of Project Management

Gluttony1

Sloth3

Opaqueness4

Pride5

Wastefulness6

Myopia7

Sin #1: Gluttony

Fixing all dimensions (scope, schedule, resources, and quality) of a project

A project management sin of excess

Experienced asImpossible schedules

Death marches

Leads toTrying to do too much for the resources (time, people) available

Cutting quality to meet other goals

Timeboxes help avoid gluttony

But the number of iterations is variableFocus is always on “what can we accomplish next?”

Timeboxed iterations increase predictability

Over time a team learns how much it can complete per iteration (its “velocity”)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9Iterations

Knowing this prevents the temptation to overcommit

What expectation of future velocity should this team set?

Feature A 5Feature B 3Feature C 5Feature F 3Feature D 5Feature E 5Feature G 3Feature I 3Feature H 5Feature J 2Feature K 5Feature L 3

✓✓✓

Sin #2: Lust

Intense or unrestrained craving for features

Experienced asTrying to put too many features into a product during the time allowedTreating all features as “critical”

Leads to

Overtime, reduced quality, surprises

Three ways agile deals with lust

Incremental2

Developing features in priority order

~Kent Beck

“Overtime is a symptom of a serious problem on the project. The XP rule is simple–you can’t work a

and put in some extra hours. If you come in on Monday and say ‘To meet our goals, we’ll have to work late again,’ then you already have a problem that can’t be solved by working more hours.”

NormalVelocity

Iterations

OvertimeVelocity

Sin #3: Sloth

Failing to do high quality work at all times

Experienced asTesting quality in at the end

Instability during development

Leads toBig delays

Unpredictable schedules

Agile practices related to quality

Continuous integration

Simple design

Automated testing

Test-driven development

Refactoring

Pair programming

Case Study 1

Cosmodemonic BiotechWaterfall Scrum

Use Case pages

User Stories

Calendar months

Person months

Lines of Java code

Lines of Java code per person-month

540 54

58,000 51,000

120 840

Productivity (NCSS / month)

270US average

389Three years priorto introducing agile

1206First nine monthsafter starting agile

NCSS=Non-Comment Source Statment (Java)

Case Study 2

ePSDefects per KNCSS

10Three years priorto introducing agile

2.9First nine monthsafter starting agile

Results achieved without any targeted rewrite of existing (buggy) codeMany of the post-agile defects continued to be in the old code True results would be even better (if we had measured them)

But wait, there’s more...

Sin #4: Opaqueness

Obscuring the progress, quality or other attribute of a project

Experienced asNot knowing the true state of the project

Leads toSurprises

Poor decisions

Three types of opaqueness

Continuous integration

Features are either “Done” or “Not Done”

Avoids the 90% Syndrome

How agile addresses Quality opaqueness1

How agile addresses Schedule opaqueness2

Iterations

01 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9Iterations

interval(28–37 here)

How agile addresses Scope opaqueness3

predict what will be delivered

(5×33)

We’ll almost certainly get here (5×28)

This is the most we can realistically expect (5×37)

Assume:There are five sprints left.

Sin #5: Pride

Believing that we know everything to build the product

Experienced asA lack of stakeholder and user involvement

Leads toFailure to solicit feedback

Failure to learn

Sprint2-4 weeks

Return

Sprint goal

Sprint backlog

Potentially shippableproduct increment

Productbacklog

Gift wrap

Coupons

Cancel

24 hours

Where are opportunities for feedback?

Agile requirements“User stories” facilitate working closely with users & customers

As a user, I want to reserve a hotel room. As a vacation traveler, I

want to see photos of the hotels so that I can choose the best one for me. As a user, I want the site to

be available 99.999% of the time I try to access it.

Sin #6: Wastefulness

Misuse of critical resources

Experienced asLosses of creativity, motivation, and time

Leads toProject malaise

Delays

Doing it the same way (again)

How agile handles waste1

Daily standups2

Iteration retrospectives3

Self-organizing teams4

Months

Waterfall

Spreading intensity evenly5

Salesforce.comImprovement in mean time to

release for major releases +61%

Increase in features delivered in major releases +94%

Increase in features delivered per developer +38%

Increase in major release cumulative value +568%

Source: Scrum Gathering, April 16, 2008

Sin #7: Myopia (Shortsightedness)

Not seeing beyond your own work

Experienced asTeams who don’t see the big picture

Individuals who work only within their roles

Leads toUnsuccessful products

Delays

Seeing the forest and the trees at the same time

Release PlanSprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3 Sprints 4–7

8 hoursTask A16 hoursTask B5 hoursTask C8 hoursTask D

Iteration Plan

Cross-functional teamAll disciplines necessary to go from idea to implementation

Improves creativity and ownership

Whole team commitment

But does that make everyone a generalist?

Is everyone a generalist?

Is everyone a generalist?Screw that;

where’slunch?

Is everyone a generalist?

Ferentino’sBruno’s

Screw that;where’slunch?

Meconi’sOrder-taker

Floater

Sandwich-maker

Additional resourcesScrum Information

www.MountainGoatSoftware.com/scrumwww.MountainGoatSoftware.com/presentationswww.ScrumAlliance.org

Trainingwww.MountainGoatSoftware.com/training

BooksAgile Software Development with Scrum, Ken SchwaberSucceeding with Agile, Mike Cohn

Mike Cohnmike@mountaingoatsoftware.comwww.mountaingoatsoftware.com

twitter: mikewcohn(888) 61−AGILE

Agile and the Seven Sins of Project Management

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